If the handiwork of the Irish were painted green, the average American city would be splashed on all sides with emerald hues. Yet there are few who are aware of this, even among the Irish themselves. A New Yorker, for example, may rise in the morning, bathe in water that comes from the Croton dam, built by James Coleman, ex-president of the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick; breakfast on Cudahy bacon; then take the subway, built by John B. McDonald, past the new College of the City of New York, built by Thomas Dwyer, to his office in a skyscraper built by John D. Crimmins, where he will cable to Alaska over a line laid by David Lynch, to order certain freight sent via James J. Hill’s Great Northern Railroad. Then, with a cigar bought from one of George J. Whelan’s 300 cigar stores, he will read the New York Sun, published by William M. Laffan and delivered by the American News Company, founded by Patrick Farrelly—and remark to an English friend:
“Yes, of course, this is an Anglo-Saxon country.”
When J. I. C. Clarke, the genial playwright, wrote his famous poem on “Kelly and Burke and Shea,” it was generally supposed to be a poetic fancy. On the contrary, I find it to be a simple matter of American history that the Kellys, the Burkes and the Sheas have been to the fore in every generation. They were all three in the battle of Lexington, as well as in the death-list of the Maine. When Hobson sank the Merrimac, a Kelly and a Murphy were his comrades in danger. Our first noted woman abolitionist was Abbie Kelley. William Darrah Kelley, of Philadelphia, was a Congressman for nearly thirty years. Hall Jackson Kelley was the founder of Oregon. The late Eugene Kelly, the New York banker, won renown as a philanthropist. Among the living members of this redoubtable family, James E. Kelly is a well-known electrical engineer. The Kelly Ax Company has a fifty-acre plant in Charleston, W. Va. Elsewhere * * * you will find the wonderful story of William Kelly, whose invention has added hundreds of millions to the wealth of the steel industry.
In the Burke family, three heroic figures appear in the first chapter of our Revolutionary history—Thomas Burke, the first governor of North Carolina; Adamus Burke, chancellor of South Carolina; and John Daly Burk, historian, patriot and duelist. All three were fighters with pen and sword, who made an indelible mark on the Southern states a century ago. In 1872, when Froude cast some aspersions upon the Irish, it was Father Thomas Burke who took up the cudgels against him. And at the present time we have Burkes enough in the United States to fill a “Burke’s Peerage” of their own. There are two bishops who bear the famous name, at Albany and St. Joseph; one brigadier-general, at Portland, Oregon; one congressman, in South Dakota; a railroad president, at Cleveland; and a judge at Seattle.
As for the Sheas, at least four of them have buffeted their way to the front—Gen. John Shea,[[8]] who won his laurels in the Revolution; Capt. Daniel Shays, who first fought at Bunker Hill and then stirred up a little side-show rebellion on his own account; George A. Shea, an eminent chief justice of New York; and John Gilmary Shea, the historian of the Catholic Church in the United States.
[8]. Gen. John Shee.
In the American business world of today, a large proportion of the solid men—the men who stand like pillars under the heavy burdens—are of Irish blood. Most conspicuous of all stands the financier upon whom the mantle of J. Pierpont Morgan seems to have fallen—the man who is not only combining but coördinating American capital—Thomas Fortune Ryan. He is one of the greatest masters of financial statesmanship, who cuts the Gordian knots of finance and ties others of his own.
Equally immovable, in a different field, stands James J. Hill, born in Canada of Ulster parents. What this one man has done for the United States has never yet been fully told. He is the creator of the Northwest—the railway builder who has opened up a territory equal to a couple of Germanys—the steamship builder who has linked America with the markets of the East. He has made wide pathways of commerce from Lake Superior across 1,500 miles of wilderness and 5,000 miles of ocean to the ports of China, Russia and Japan. Ever since he double-earned his first dollar as a Mississippi roustabout, fifty years ago, his life has been a continuous obstacle-race; and there have been few occasions when James J. Hill missed a hurdle.
Two other railway presidents are Samuel Sloan, of New York, who was born when Madison was in the White House; and Richard C. Kerens, of St. Louis. Daniel O’Day[[9]]—every inch of him Irish—is one of the most important members of the imperial group of financiers who float the flag of Standard Oil. Forty years since, he was a laborer in the oil regions, whose main problem was to find a job; today, as he jokingly says to his friends, his main problem is to find out how to invest his surplus. Another New Yorker of Titanic mold is Alexander E. Orr, who was nineteen years old before he had seen any other country than Ireland. As a president of large commercial bodies, he has few equals. He is a director who directs. For nearly fifty years he has stood under the heaviest responsibilities, and was recently chosen, because of his ability and uprightness, to preside over the immense interests of the New York Life Insurance Company.
[9]. Recently deceased.